One Dumb Question That Will Define Sony's Console Announcement

Not "Does it have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4" but that's important, too

Disclaimer: The opinions and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions and viewpoints of Neoseeker.

When Sony's "PlayStation Meeting 2013" goes live today at 3:00 PST/6:00 EST there will be a single question in my mind that will influence my opinion of their next-gen console more than any other. Issues such as the controller, used games, online services, game streaming, the "Share" button, hardware specifications and price will all prove significant, of course, but there's something more pressing in my mind. Don't get me wrong, what I'm thinking of isn't some convoluted theory or baseless assumptions -- in fact, it's quite dumb. I have a single dumb question that I want to be clearly addressed.

Sony could step up and answer my question in the first thirty second of their presentation. Like I said, it's nothing complicated. It's primarily focused on Sony's attitude going into the development of the next PlayStation and then what that means going forward. As such, it may not be a simple answer, but instead a theme that's pervasive throughout the entire event. In fact, they may never address it, but nevertheless my big dumb questions will have its answer whether Sony refers to it or not.

My stupid question is: Is the PlayStation 4 going to be a video game console? I know! Totally freaking idiotic, right? There's really no other way to put it. Still, there's more to the question than whether or not it'll play games. Clearly the thing will play games, Sony isn't just throwing it's future into the ocean here. Nevertheless, the question is hugely important, because the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii in recent years have evolved in a direction where it's difficult to discern whether being a video game console is their primary focus anymore. They are consoles that play video games, but perhaps they're focus isn't on being video game consoles anymore. Freaking nonsense, right?

Let me at least clarify my idiocy. In recent years, say the last three or four, Netflix and social media usage on consoles has skyrocketed. Sony knows this more than others, as they overtook the Wii as the leading streaming platform/gaming console out there. Another fact, Xbox 360 owners play online games more than twice as often as PlayStation 3 owners -- perhaps even worse, PlayStation 3 gamers are playing less online games and spending more time streaming media. In other words, Sony's market growth is perhaps greatest in the direction of streaming services and as a Blu-ray player.

Here comes the PlayStation 4 announcement and it appears as if Sony is at a potential crossroads. Does Jack Tretton take the stage today and say, "Here's the PlayStation 4, a video game console that will deliver the best gaming experiences for the next decade," or, "Here's the PlayStation 4, the next-generation centerpiece of the living room, fully equipped to deliver the best online streaming and social media environment of any next-gen console and also the great Sony games our fans have come to expect."

It's just a simple shift in attitude and marketing, but for gamers it might make all the difference. Look at the Wii U, who took the latter route and is now floundering without a significant game release in months. They've got a pretty exciting social hub and interesting community features, though!

There is a war approaching between Microsoft and Sony for which will be the appropriate choice for people who buy consoles to play games, but it may not even be the front-lines this time around.

Yes, it's a dumb question, "Is the PlayStation 4 going to be a video game console?" It's dumb, but it's quite honestly the most important question to me and for a majority of you, too. I want Jack Tretton to walk on stage, point at the screen and say, "I want you on team PlayStation, let's talk about video games." The degree to which Sony confirms my question will make all the difference.

Follow Rory on Twitter @bluexy or read his news, reviews and features every day here at Neoseeker.

Streaming PS3 games? Streaming a massive potentially 25GB game to your console over the Internet. Can't see that working well over here since the Internet is barely decent at best, unless you get a hard copy of it on the HDD... even then though, that would quickly fill up space. Simply put, the success of that is based purely on the infrastructure being good enough to carry it and most times my Internet connection can't even manage a SD video without having to spend a minute buffering it.

TBH though, I'm not sure where the issue is. If it will play a PS3 game as a downloaded version on the harddrive then surely it must be capable of playing it off the disc... even with upgrades in the bluray disc with BDXL having capacities up to 128Gb, the drive should still be capable of reading a normal bluray disc.

Apparently there will be no backwards compatability in the PS4 so if you want to continue PS3 games, either still use that or will have to buy it again from the PSN since PS3 downloads will be allowed on that.

PS3 games natively will not work on the PS4 hardware. It's the equivalent of putting a Wii game into a Xbox due to the way the new platform is designed.

Apparently there will be no backwards compatability in the PS4 so if you want to continue PS3 games, either still use that or will have to buy it again from the PSN since PS3 downloads will be allowed on that. Dick move from Sony if its true, motivated purely by money for that since they'll take a cut of sales from the PSN store and pass on the rest of the money to the publishers and developers. Quite a putoff for me since I only own a PS3 as a christmas present, I'm largely a PC gamer now and will usually only buy a console for exclusives or playing older games on it (the only reason my PS2 is still set up). Backwards compatability would've been a deciding factor in that but without it, I doubt I'd pay the cost to buy the PS4 since to play older games I'd still have to purchase them in the Playstation Store again (without so much as a discount for already owning the game). The money would be better off spent upgrading my PC further which retains full backwards compatability so long as there is an OS there that can still run the older games... if not, dual boot will take care of that. That is also mainly due to the fact that most of the PS/2 games I have aren't available on the PSN and I doubt they ever will be, at a discounted cost due to already owning them.

Other things have described it as a supercharged PC.

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It runs off an x86-based CPU (central processing unit) - similar architecture to that found in most desktop computers - and an "enhanced" PC GPU (graphics processing unit). Both CPU and GPU are designed by the US firm Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

It would be interesting to see what AMD come up with but chances are it'll end up being one of their APUs or a discrete custom HD7xxx series GPU and a low end FX series CPU. Basically by the time it will come out, it'll already be a year or two behind many gaming PCs.

Consoles, are shifting from pure gaming machines though, in the same way that a PC is no longer an office tool and a mobile phone is no longer a communicator. Basically they've seen a consumer want something that can mainly do it's primary function (gaming in terms of console, productivity in terms of PC, and contacting people in terms of phones) but also multimedia aswell, the PS3 makes a brilliant bluray and media centre especially if the media centre OS is installed.

Nice, like many I've been focused on the biggest questions for answers which will come in time but when I first read the question I thought it was dumb too, then I read a couple of sentences more and found it to be honestly most important IMO.

I buy a console for the purpose of playing console games only and the thought that sony or any other company could gear their gaming consoles more towards anything else is scary, shame though you would probably get a very political answer favering both the games and the media part.